In Mexico, Biden glad to focus on economy rather than security

Richard Fausset

MEXICO CITY — Vice President Joe Biden, in the Mexican capital Friday for meetings with top government officials and business leaders, said he was glad to be focusing on trade rather than on security issues and argued that an economically prosperous Mexico would strengthen the economy of the United States.

Biden said that his visits to Mexico as a senator in previous decades were "mostly about security issues — mostly about drugs, mostly about immigration. And finally — finally — we have reached the point we should have reached a long time ago, I think … where we're looking at the relationship as partners."

FOR THE RECORD: Biden's Mexico trip: In the Sept. 21 Section A, an article about Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Mexico City referred to a closed-door meeting Friday afternoon between Biden and the Mexican vice president. The meeting was between Biden and the Mexican president.

The vice president spoke Friday morning in Mexico's Foreign Relations building to open what is planned to be a yearly "high level economic dialogue" between Mexican and U.S. officials. The government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has been trying to shift attention away from the country's drug war and toward its economic potential.

Changing the subject has been complicated in recent months by an economic slowdown, continued drug-related violence and high-profile scandals including the release of Rafael Caro Quintero, an infamous drug lord who had been imprisoned for the 1985 slaying of an American drug enforcement agent.

Such matters apparently will be handled with discretion while the two countries continue to publicly trumpet their strengthened economic ties.

U.S. officials said that security and other matters might be discussed in a closed-door meeting between Biden and the Mexican vice president Friday afternoon. In advance of Biden's visit, both sides were adamant that there would be little public discussion of recent allegations that the U.S. spied on Peña Nieto last year, when he was a presidential candidate.

Biden said he was aiming to strengthen cross-border economic bonds forged by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Officials say the accord has quadrupled the rate of exchange between the two countries since it was signed in 1994.

The subsequent expansion of a Mexican consumer class, Biden said, has benefited the United States, opening up new export opportunities.

Before the meeting, Mexican officials said they were keen to improve the flow of goods and people across the border, where free trade is complicated by U.S. concerns about unauthorized immigrants and the massive flow of drugs northward.

Biden, on numerous occasions, said he didn't want to seem like he was lecturing or condescending. But he said countries like Mexico would thrive if they focused on improving their justice systems and strengthening intellectual property rights.

The U.S. has spent millions in recent years to help Mexico improve transparency in its dysfunctional court system. The U.S. entertainment industry, meanwhile, complains about the widely tolerated bootlegging of U.S. movies and music here.

Biden argued that a stronger culture of intellectual-property ownership would be good for Mexico as well, because it would stimulate "homegrown innovative capacity."

Education officials from both countries also discussed plans to boost cross-border research and increase the number of exchange students.

In an afternoon appearance alongside Biden, Peña Nieto said that the relationship between the two countries shouldn't center on a few narrow themes. Rather, he said, it should be "a wide, diverse" relationship that takes advantage of "the creativity and the initiative of the governments and their individuals."